Three Big Reasons You’re Still Single

Our guest blogger today is author/YourTango relationship coach Virginia Clark, who offers some wisdom into the ever-popular question, “Why are you still single?”

What determines whether you find the love of your life or end up alone? This question haunts even the most confident women. You’re not alone. It comes up when you’ve spent years in and out of failed relationships and you finally reach the point of wanting to give up on love.

If you ask this question in the form of a complaint, like “why me?” you won’t get a satisfactory answer. But if you ask it with an open mind and in the spirit of wanting to know the truth, it can make the difference between finding the love of your life—or being alone.

Here are three possible reasons why you might ask “Why am I still single?” One or two of them may apply to you, or maybe all three. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself when you consider them. You, like me many years ago, may have some “blind spots” that make it hard for you to see the truth of your situation. If any one of these strikes a nerve but you’re not sure, get some objective feedback or ask a friend what they think so you can move forward.

Three reasons you may be asking, “Why am I still single?”:

1. You’re ambivalent about entering into a committed, intimate relationship with a man.

As much as you think you want a partner, you may find it hard to leave your comfort zone of being single. I know you don’t think you’re comfortable, but we tend to go for what’s familiar. Ambivalence will prevent you from taking the emotional risks necessary to get close enough to a man to love him and let him love you. It will keep you from fully committing to finding a partner, and creates all kinds of sneaky ways to ruin your relationships. If left unchallenged, it will keep you falling for unavailable men or with acts of self-sabotage such as drinking too much on a first date. Ambivalence will make you believe all kinds of excuses and rationalizations as to why you haven’t met the right man, and it will keep you in a state of blaming rather than taking responsibility.

2. You make finding a man more important than finding happiness.

It’s a cliche but it’s true: You can’t depend on anything outside of yourself to make you happy. Believe me, if you tend to be a negative woman who always sees the glass as half empty, nothing is going to change when you find Mr. Right and marry him.

Yes, you might have a few months of intoxication when you are still in the honeymoon stage of the relationship. But soon, as the headiness wears off and you start to see the real man with all of his imperfections, you’ll no longer be able to get the “happiness fix.” Your negative attitude will creep back in and you’ll be stuck feeling miserable again.

3. You don’t value yourself enough to set boundaries.

Every relationship you enter into requires some form of boundaries. Whether it’s your hairdresser, your doctor, or your mother, there are “rules” that are implied in the nature of a relationship. If you let people—men in particular—get away with breaking the rules you need to feel safe and loved, you’ll end up floundering emotionally and be full of resentment.

Boundaries, like discipline, create freedom. If you don’t have standards in your relationships, you’re at the mercy of someone else’s bad behavior. “Why am I still single?” is a good question to ask yourself and you shouldn’t be afraid of the answer. Facing what has been holding you back is the only way to move yourself forward to get the love you desire.